Worcester City Charters
Digitally captured for future preservation
The Record Office has just completed a project to
create high-quality digital copies of the series of City Charters
held at the Guildhall in Worcester. Read on to find out more
about the Charters and why this project took place.
~~~ What are City
Charters? ~~ Charter of Richard I ~~
Later
Charters ~~ Charter of James I ~~~
~~~ Why have the Charters been
digitised? ~~ Access to the digital
copies ~~~
What are City Charters?
A royal city charter would have been granted by a monarch
to a group of citizens in order to bestow
certain privileges upon them. Essentially, it would have given
the city certain rights to act independently from the shire and to
make decisions regarding its governance in its own right.
Worcester city
holds sixteen Charters which date from the period
of 1189 to 1685, with a seventeenth issued by the present
Queen in 1974, confirming the City's status as a Borough, following
the local government reorganisation of that year. The original
Charters are held at the Guildhall in Worcester.
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Charter of Richard I
The earliest charter is that of Richard I,
granted on 12 November 1189. In the summer of that year Richard the
Lionheart came to the throne. He was to spend only a few months in
his kingdom before going on crusade, but that time was spent
raising money from a variety of sources, including the sale of
offices and privileges. Worcester took advantage of the opportunity
to acquire this, its first charter, in return for a financial
contribution.
The charter is written in a clear court
hand in brown ink on a small piece of parchment, about 6.5 inches
by 5 inches. It still bears on its green and red silk cords
fragments of the Great Seal of the King, in the green wax that
indicates a grant 'in perpetuity'. By this charter the city gained
the freedom for the burgesses to pay a fixed annual sum of £24
directly to the King's Exchequer rather than through the Sheriff of
the County, thus making it independent of the county
financially.
Worcester's recorded history as a borough goes
back a long way before this charter. In the ninth century the Earl
of Mercia had granted privileges in the borough to the Bishop, a
borough with a court and market and with a responsibility to
maintain its fortifications.
Why did it take so long for Worcester to get
its first royal charter? Some have speculated that the influence of
the powerful Beauchamp family, hereditary sheriffs of
Worcestershire, held it back from establishing its independence,
and the twelfth century was also a difficult time for the city,
which was burnt down four times in this period and suffered greatly
during the civil wars of the reign of Stephen.
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Later Charters
The city gained other charters in the
centuries that followed. Some were merely confirmations by new
monarchs, on ascending the throne, of the existing charter
privileges, but others added new powers and privileges to those the
city already had.
Richard's nephew, Henry III, added new privileges. Whilst
raising the annual sum to be paid to £30, he granted that the
sheriff could not intervene in any legal plea belonging to the city
(other than royal pleas) and also granted that the City should have
a merchant guild, with all the liberties that went with it. Edward
III and his son Richard II also granted new legal privileges to the
City.
In the reign of Philip and Mary in 1555 the
city was incorporated under the style of 'the bailiffs, alderman,
chamberlains and citizens'. The two bailiffs, who first appeared in
the thirteenth century, were the chief officers of the city.
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Charter of James I
At the end of
the sixteenth century the city council began to plan how to extend
its privileges further. Their aim was that Worcester should become
a county in its own right, exempt from the shire, and to be
incorporated with a mayor replacing the two bailiffs. Negotiations
were long. The city set up a committee in 1604 to begin this
process, but it was not until 17 years later in 1621 that they were
successful. Again, the influence of powerful vested interests, this
time those of the bishop of Worcester, held up progress.
The 1621 charter, written on six and a half
sheets of parchment measuring roughly three feet by two feet, is
extremely detailed. It begins with an initial portrait of James I
[illustrated] and goes on to grant incorporation in the name of
'mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city of Worcester', and makes
it a county in its own right. It names the main officers of the
city (including a new office of sheriff now it was a county and a
swordbearer [picture of the sword?]). This charter was to form the
basis of city government for over two centuries until the Municipal
Reform Act in the 1830s.
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Why have the Charters been digitised?
Owing to the historical value of the City Charters it is
important to secure access to them for future generations. After
discussion between the Mayor of Worcester (Councillor Andy
Roberts), the Archives Manager and the City Museum Service it was
agreed the charters could be taken to the Record Office's premises
to be digitally captured by the sophisticated equipment in the
Office's digitisation unit. There are several benefits
to creating a high quality digital copy of the Charters:
- An accurate duplicate is available as a security copy of the
original documents in case of any damage sustained in the
future.
- Access to the Charters will be increased as members
of the public can now view the documents on discs available at the
Worcestershire Record Office.
- The City now has digital copies of their Charters available,
enabling them to create copies for exhibitions and publicity.
Access to the digital copies
You can now view digital copies of the City Charters on disk at
the County Hall branch of Worcestershire Record Office, reference
number 949.65 BA 15132. The disk contains images of the
following charters:
- Richard I - 12 November 1189
- Henry III - 17 March 1227
- Henry III - 23 February 1256
- Edward III - 12 July 1330
- Edward III - 2 April 1377
- Richard II - 1 April 1378
- Richard II - 29 March 1396
- Henry IV - 4 December 1403
- Henry V - 12 December 1413
- Henry VI - 11 June 1423
- Edward IV - 20 December 1461
- Henry VII - 5 February 1486
- Philip and Mary - 12 April 1555
- Elizabeth I - 20 May 1559
- James I - 2 October 1622
- James II - 18 February 1685
- Elizabeth II - 15 May 1974
Staff at the desk will be happy to show you how to order and
view this disk.
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